About the Exhibition

A Centennial Exhibition: INOUE Yuichi will be a large-scale retrospective marking the birth 100 years ago of Inoue Yuichi (1916-1985), one of Japan’s most important postwar artists.
Inoue Yuichi is among the few Japanese contemporary artists to win broad international acclaim in the postwar years. Taking the ink and paper of calligraphy tradition as his expressive medium, Inoue became a pioneering voice in the postwar Japanese art scene. This exhibition will go to the core of Inoue’s art through more than 200 of his most notable works from his early to late periods.
From his 1955 “Work” series, the exhibition will present examples of Inoue’s abstract calligraphy, created in response to abstract expressionism. It will also display his foremost early-period work Gutetsu, submitted in the 1957 São Paulo Art Biennial, and works of the 1960s such as Kō (Fond), Haha (Mother), and Kaze (Wind) created using innovative materials and methods of his own invention, such as glue and frozen ink. The exhibition will then move to Inoue works of the 1970s that reflect the mind in accord with lifestyle, such as Hin (Poverty), and final period works of the late 1970s and ‘80s, such as Tori (Bird), Tsuki (Moon), Fun (Behead), and Taka (Hawk) which construct an increasingly rich world.
The exhibition will highlight the varying styles for which Inoue is known, his single-character calligraphy, needless to say, but also his multi-character pieces recalling his experience of the horror of war, Tokyo-daikūshū (Tokyo Bombing) and Ah Yokokawa Kokumin-gakkō (Ah, Yokokawa National School!) His kotobagaki (word works) in which he spoke the word as part of the creative action will also be featured: works such as Kaeru Tanjō-sai and Yodaka-no-hoshi rendered in conté pencil, pencil, or carbon. The exhibition will conclude with works of Inoue’s late years undertaken amid his struggle with illness. These include Nametokoyama no Kuma (The Bears of Nametoko Mountain) and his free-hand copies (rinsho) of the classics Yan Qingli Stele and Jō (Above), as well as his final piece, Kokoro (Mind).
Through works representing every stage his career, the exhibition will explore the world of free, unconventional calligraphy to which Inoue Yuichi remained committed throughout his life.

Session [1] “About Inoue Yuichi: Calligraphy is an Art for Everyone”
Lecturer: UNAGAMI Masaomi (Art critic)
Art critic Unagami Masaomi personally knew Inoue Yuichi and was among the first to position his work as contemporary art. Unagami will discuss the fascination of Yuichi’s calligraphy with its unique, richly expressive power transcending calligraphy and tradition.

Section [2] “The Fascination of Inoue Yuichi’s Work Seen in Objects, Characters and Onomatopoeia”
Lecturer: KURIMOTO Takayuki (Special research fellow, Institute for Art Anthropology, Tama Art University; Art critic)
The young art critic Kurimoto Takayuki, who has drawn attention with his analysis of contemporary calligraphy’s relationship with abstract art, will discuss the rich imagery of Inoue Yuichi’s works. Offering clear keywords, he will look at Inoue’s works broadly from varying perspectives including art and language.

HAGA Toru x UNAGAMI Masaomi INOUE Yuichi Centennial Talk

February 14, 2016 will be the centennial of INOUE Yuichi’s birth, the day he would have turned 100. In commemoration, a talk by two persons closely familiar with Inoue and his work will be held on the prior day, February 13. HAGA Toru, a researcher in Japanese culture with broad knowledge of art, and Unagami Masaomi, who can speak of Inoue Yuichi with deep insight into the man, will discuss Inoue’s daring yet sensitive character and his fascination as a revolutionary who brought calligraphy into a new realm of expression after the war.

Inoue Yuichi’s calligraphy was an unremitting rebellion against the reduction of characters to symbols. Between Inoue Yuichi and MIYAZAWA Kenji, a rich dialogue unfolded concerning physical “imitation” and “rapport” in older times before language was reduced to abstract writing systems. IMAFUKU Ryuta will discuss the beauty of Inoue’s art, which stands on the cusp between “language” and “physical memory.”

Lecturer KITAMI Otomaru (Supervisor, General Incorporated Foundations World Paper Heritage Support Foundation KAMIMORI)
Venue: Kids Studio, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
*Details to be posted on the museum website at a later date

Artist Profile

INOUE Yuichi

1916 Born in Asakusa, Tokyo.
1935 Appointed teacher at Yokokawa National School, Honjo Ward, Tokyo.
1941 Studies calligraphy with UEDA Sokyu.
1952 Forms the “BOKUJIN” Group and serves as chief editor of its monthly magazine “Bokujin” (until its 50th issue).
1957 Shows “Gutetsu” at the São Paulo Art Biennial. Attracts the attention of English art critic Herbert Read.
1959 Submits work in documenta 2 (Kassel) at the urging of Kasper König. Gutetsu is published in Herbert Read’s A Concise History of Modern Painting.
1976 Retires, after 41 years of teaching, as principal of the Asahi Elementary School in Samukawa-cho, Kanagawa Prefecture.
1985 Dies of liver cancer at the age of 69.
1986 The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto acquires 62 of his foremost works.
1989 Retrospective “YU-ICHI works 1955-85” held at The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. (Exhibition travels to Saitama, Niigata, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka, Ehime, and Koriyama).
1994 His works Ah Yokokawa Kokumin-gakkō and Muga appear in “Scream Against the Sky: Japanese Art After 1945” organized by Alexandra Munroe (Guggenheim Museum, New York).
1995 “YU-ICHI 1916-1985” exhibition held at Kunsthalle Basel in Basel, Switzerland. Kasper König holds Inoue Yuichi shows simultaneously at three art museums in Frankfurt: “Yuichi HIN” (Schirn Kunsthalle, Germany), “Yuichi Die Bomberdierung Tokyos” (Karmeliterkloster, Frankfurt), and “Yuichi Wirtschaftswachstum” (Museum Angewandte Kunst).
1996-2000 “YU-ICHI: Catalogue Raisonné of the Works 1949-1985” by Unagami Masaomi is published in three volumes by UNAC Tokyo.
2000 International art symposiums are held both in Kyoto and Tokyo to commemorate the completion in three volumes of the “Catalogue Raisonné.”
2005 “Yuichi and Yecker” exhibition held at Langen Foundation (Germany).
2013 His work appears at the Sharjah Biennial 11 (UAE).

Related Publication

Inoue Yuichi 1955-1985
Together with this large-scale retrospective marking the centennial of Inoue Yuichi’s birth, the history of the artist’s career during thirty years from 1955 to 1985 will be surveyed in a publication compiling important works from his early to late periods. Included will be analyses on Inoue Yuichi’s work by leading authorities, introducing the entire scope of his art.
Essay contributors:
UNAGAMI Masaomi (Art critic)
IMAFUKU Ryuta (Cultural anthropologist and critic; Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
KURIMOTO Takayuki (Special research fellow, Institute for Art Anthropology, Tama Art University; Art critic)
KITAMI Otomaru (Supervisor, General Incorporated Foundations World Paper Heritage Support Foundation KAMIMORI)
AKIMOTO Yuji (Director, 21st Century Museum of Art, Kanazawa; Director, The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts)
Number of illustrations: About 210
Publisher: General Incorporated Foundations World Paper Heritage Support Foundation KAMIMORI
Size: A4 variant, hard cover, 352 pages (tentative)
Design: Goshi Uhira
Price: 3,000 yen
Expected: launch January 2, 2016